People

I have a confession…

I don’t like photographing people. There are many reasons for this, but none of them are very concrete. But there are reasons such as…a person looks different on camera than they do in real life, and suddenly the idea I had in mind is a bit too different for me to deal with. People also move… whereas products don’t actually move at all, and any movement they do have is directly inputted from myself. Another bad thing is probably that I like to take my time to shoot but at the same time, I hate using up other peoples time.

Unless I’m a really into a shot, or pose, or look, I tend to be quiet and kind of slowly let things fall into place until everything just…clicks. I also have a tendency to want to shoot people as they are, how they naturally look, and not give too much direction, essentially I just prefer people be themselves, which can lead to a lack of directions and me not saying much to the model other than small talk, which is fine by me, but I always feel like I’m making the model feel awkward.

Lastly, people are hard to move around and pose. The human body is a certain way and wants to remain that certain way almost always. But the best looking poses are usually the most uncomfortable ones that feel completely unnatural or plain weird. Why is this? Because photography is a 2D medium. But the fact remains that humans aren’t as easy to pose and maneuver as static objects are.

However, I absolutely love human emotion and expression and so despite my dislike for photographing people, lately within the past few years, I’ve been wanting to do more portraits. Anything from headshots (there are plans for a full on project with this) to full on story telling editorials, I want to do them all. As much as I don’t like photographing people, it can be a lot of good fun and I love it each time. I really need to do more… Care to join me?

Gallery

Kevin Tuong

Kevin is a first generation Chinese-Canadian, born and raised in Edmonton, AB. Has diplomas in both Computer Engineering and Photographic Technology from NAIT and has won national photography awards from PPOC. Kevin strives to create impactful imagery that aims to fascinate and inspire the viewers and their imaginations.